Posts tagged with: National Health Service

Acton Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, recently discussed Catholicism and healthcare over at Crisis Magazine. In his article, he asks “Must Catholics favor socialized medicine?” Gregg begins by addressing whether or not “access to healthcare may be described as a ‘right.'” He asserts that Catholics should agree it is a right based on a 2012 address Pope Benedict XVI made to healthcare workers, in which he unambiguously spoke of the “right to healthcare.” Gregg continues:

But the real debate for Catholics starts when we consider how to realize this right. Rights are a matter of justice, and justice is a primary concern of the state. Indeed Benedict XVI noted in his 2012 message that healthcare is subject to the demands of justice—specifically distributive justice—and the common good.

Some Catholics may believe this implies we’re obliged to support a more-or-less socialized healthcare system such as Britain’s National Health Service. Yet nothing in Benedict’s message or Catholic social teaching more generally implies this is the only possible path forward. (more…)

Despite a promise of “complete and fair coverage of health care for everyone for free,” the Greek state-controlled system is broken and corrupt, the Athens daily ekathimerini.com reports. Predictably, Greeks have taken it upon themselves to build a private health care sector:

Despite hikes in Greece’s health spending between 2000 to 2008 being among the highest of all OECD countries, this has not been matched by growing life expectancy rates, the report added. Turning to the hospital system, corruption has grown due to poorly run operations and an improper organisation structure with about one in five Greeks admitting to having paid a bribe in order to receive medical treatment at a state hospital. These problems have contributed to growth in the private healthcare industry which provides crucial services but also enjoys the benefit of not having any competition, the report added.

In the UK, the National Health Service has been using hospital beds as housing for senior care, to the detriment of people who actually need hospital beds. From the Telegraph:

If current trends continue, almost 100,000 of 170,000 NHS beds will end up being filled by elderly people who are well enough to be in residential care. This will cost the health service millions of pounds and throw its day-to-day operations into chaos, says the report by Bupa, the health insurance and care provider. It blames the looming crisis on a “17-year legacy of under-funding in the care home sector”. The next few years will see the problem getting progressively worse, the report’s authors predict, despite a Coalition pledge that local authorities will have an extra £2 billion to spend on adult social care over the next four years.